Israel Deports a Bethlehem U. Student Because She Is From Gaza

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
October 29, 2009

By Matthew Kalman
Jerusalem

A student in her final year of work at Bethlehem University was deported last night to her home in Gaza by Israeli authorities, despite appeals by the university and human-rights groups after she was arrested on Wednesday at a military checkpoint near Bethlehem, in the West Bank.

Berlanty Azzam, who is 21 and has been studying business administration and translation at Bethlehem since 2005, was stopped at a roadside checkpoint in the West Bank and detained because she is a resident of Gaza.

The Israeli military has banned Palestinian residents of Gaza from studying at Palestinian universities in the West Bank. Two years ago, it began arresting Palestinians with Gaza identity cards and sending them back to the embattled coastal strip.

Ms. Azzam told The Chronicle that she was handcuffed, blindfolded, and driven to an unknown destination by Israeli security forces. It wasn't until they removed her blindfold that she discovered she was being dumped across the border into Gaza at midnight, with no warning and no means of finding her way home in the dark. She said she was "terrified."

Israeli officials said she had "cynically used permission given to her in 2005 to stay for four years illegally in Bethlehem."

But human-rights lawyers said the Israeli army had broken an understanding not to deport her before her case could be brought before a judge. Noting that another Gaza resident arrested at the same time at the same checkpoint was not deported, they accused the Israeli army of "a naked attempt to evade judicial review."

Bethlehem University administrators urged supporters on Wednesday to contact the Israeli military authorities to protest the arrest. "Let them know that you demand that they release Berlanty Azzam immediately so that she can resume and complete her last year of studies," the university said in its message.

Ms. Azzam, who is due to complete her bachelor's degree in December, began her studies in Bethlehem in 2005 after the Israeli authorities granted her a permit to travel across Israel from Gaza to the West Bank. The travel permit has not been renewed, so she has stayed in Bethlehem since then to finish her degree and has been unable to see her family for four years.

In August 2007, Israel's Supreme Court upheld Israeli military policy denying Gaza residents the right to stay in the West Bank but asked the army to consider exceptions. Trying to take advantage of that ruling, Bethlehem University created a scholarship program for 16 students from the Gaza Strip, but in the current academic year, all 16 candidates were refused entry by Israel.

Enforcement of the deportation policy had seemed to halt after protests from human-rights groups, but it has intensified again in the past few weeks, according to Gisha, an Israeli human-rights organization that campaigns for freedom of movement for Palestinians.

"I spoke to her today for about 10 minutes until the army took away her cellphone," Sari Bashi, executive director of Gisha, told The Chronicle. "She's terrified. She's 21. She has never been in detention and doesn't know what's happening to her."

In the past, when human-rights groups have interceded before detainees have been deported, Israel's Supreme Court has ruled against the army and allowed Gaza residents to remain in the West Bank. In most cases, however, Palestinians are deported before anyone hears about their arrest, and it has proved almost impossible to get them out of Gaza once they have been returned there.

According to Ms. Bashi, Ms. Azzam's case is the sixth in less than two weeks involving Gazans arrested at the same checkpoint, the only passage permitted to Palestinians between the southern and northern sections of the West Bank.

This policy of deporting people to Gaza because of their identity cards is pending before the Supreme Court, said Ms. Bashi. "We have asked the military to stop doing this at least until the court rules. Instead we end up playing cat and mouse with the military."

Israel Detains a Bethlehem U. Student Because She Is From Gaza

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
October 28, 2009
By Matthew Kalman
Jerusalem

Bethlehem University and human-rights groups are appealing to Israeli authorities not to deport a final-year student back to her home in Gaza after she was arrested on Wednesday at a military checkpoint near Bethlehem, in the West Bank.

Berlanty Azzam, who is 21 and has been studying business administration and translation at Bethlehem since 2005, was stopped at a roadside checkpoint in the West Bank and detained because she is a resident of Gaza.

The Israeli military has banned Palestinian residents of Gaza from studying at Palestinian universities in the West Bank. Two years ago, it began arresting Palestinians with Gaza identity cards and sending them back to the embattled coastal strip.

Ms. Azzam is being held at a detention center inside Israel pending her deportation.

"We need your help," Bethlehem University administrators wrote in a message to supporters on Wednesday, urging them to contact the Israeli military authorities to protest the arrest. "Let them know that you demand that they release Berlanty Azzam immediately so that she can resume and complete her last year of studies," the university said.

Ms. Azzam, who is due to complete her bachelor's degree in December, began her studies in Bethlehem in 2005 after the Israeli authorities granted her a permit to travel across Israel from Gaza to the West Bank. The travel permit has not been renewed, so she has stayed in Bethlehem since then to finish her degree and has been unable to see her family for four years.

In August 2007, Israel's Supreme Court upheld Israeli military policy denying Gaza residents the right to stay in the West Bank but asked the army to consider exceptions. Trying to take advantage of that ruling, Bethlehem University created a scholarship program for 16 students from the Gaza Strip, but in the current academic year, all 16 candidates were refused entry by Israel.

Enforcement of the deportation policy had seemed to halt after protests from human-rights groups, but it has intensified again in the past few weeks, according to Gisha, an Israeli human-rights organization that campaigns for freedom of movement for Palestinians.

"I spoke to her today for about 10 minutes until the army took away her cellphone," Sari Bashi, executive director of Gisha, told The Chronicle. "She's terrified. She's 21. She has never been in detention and doesn't know what's happening to her."

Ms. Azzam is being detained illegally, Ms. Bashi said. "We asked the army to let her go," she added, but "they said no. They did agree to wait until after our lawyer visits in the morning. They won't deport her pending an opportunity for our lawyer to file a court petition."

In the past, when human-rights groups have interceded before detainees have been deported, Israel's Supreme Court has ruled against the army and allowed Gaza residents to remain in the West Bank. In most cases, however, Palestinians are deported before anyone hears about their arrest, and it has proved almost impossible to get them out of Gaza once they have been returned there.

According to Ms. Bashi, Ms. Azzam's case is the sixth in less than two weeks involving Gazans arrested at the same checkpoint, the only passage permitted to Palestinians between the southern and northern sections of the West Bank.

This policy of deporting people to Gaza because of their identity cards is pending before the Supreme Court, said Ms. Bashi. "We have asked the military to stop doing this at least until the court rules. Instead we end up playing cat and mouse with the military."

Lawyers plan to petition the Supreme Court on behalf of Ms. Azzam on Thursday.

Israeli officials were unavailable for comment on Wednesday.

Hundreds of Palestinian Students Are Blocked From Travel to Foreign Universities

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
DAILY NEWS TICKER
22 October 2009
With the 2009-10 academic year under way, 838 Palestinian students are still waiting for the authorization that will enable them to leave the Gaza Strip for overseas universities. The Israeli human-rights group Gisha-Legal Center for Freedom of Movement says that 1,983 such students have been accepted into educational institutions abroad and registered for permits to exit via the Rafah border crossing since the start of the year, but only 1,145 have managed to pass through the crossing because of Egyptian restrictions. Approximately 50 other students have left via Israel through the Erez crossing.

Israel's Illegal Immigrants — and Their Children

By Matthew Kalman / Tel Aviv Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009

Two Filipino women in the flat they rent in Tel Aviv. Like many other Filipino migrant workers in Israel, they work as caregivers to the elderly Judah Passow / Getty

Mila Valdez, 40, lives near the central bus station in Tel Aviv. It is thousands of miles from where she was born, in the Philippines. She and her 7-year-old son live a cramped existence in three small rooms plus kitchen and bathroom — plus eight other people. But she is fighting for the right to stay in Israel.

Valdez is among 200,000 foreign workers from East Asia, Africa and Latin America who have found their way to Israel. About half of them are illegal, as Valdez is now. She went to Israel legally but her visa lapsed at about the time she gave birth to her son Jerry. Her apartment is among the Eritrean cafés, Sudanese restaurants and Filipino bars in the streets around the old central bus station — underneath a police advertisement inviting residents to inform on their neighbors' visa status. "I am working as a house cleaner because I'm now illegal," Valdez tells TIME. "My husband was caught in 2007 and he was deported. My son Jerry loves Israel. We're hoping to stay."

And it is Jerry who may be key to her chances. He and another 1,200 children are at the heart of a political battle that cuts across traditional political loyalties, raising fundamental questions about the mission of the Jewish state. Interior Minister Eli Yishai, leader of the ultra-orthodox Shas Party, wants to expel the foreign workers, many of whom are devout Christians, like Valdez, a Roman Catholic. Yishai says their presence "is liable to damage the state's Jewish identity, constitute a demographic threat and increase the danger of assimilation." The government says the illegals and their children must leave Israel once the school year ends in June.

A new police unit, Oz (from the Hebrew for "strength"), has been rounding up illegals and shipping them home. Since July, 800 have been deported while more than 2,000 have left voluntarily. But the government decision to expel children born in Israel has split the ruling Likud party. "Those 1,200 children that were born in Israel and didn't ever know another country are not to be blamed. They should stay here and we should resolve their status," Likud minister Limor Livnat tells TIME. The government is still debating the order and it may yet be countermanded or changed. It has happened before. In 2006, Israel naturalized 567 families with school-age children.

The municipality of Tel Aviv, where most of the immigrant workers live, together with about 17,000 refugees mainly from Darfur and Eritrea, provides free health care and day care for children, including vaccinations and education. Adult health services are provided by Physicians for Human Rights. The Hotline for Migrant Workers has people on call 24/7 to provide welfare and legal advice. "Whoever is in our territory deserves our services," deputy mayor Yael Dayan tells TIME. "It's not a question of grace, it's really a question of right. It's not doing them a favor and it's not how moved we are by these little children. They have added a lot to Tel Aviv society in many ways."

The uncertainty of residency and the constant threat of arrest takes its toll on the children. Parents report nightmares, bed-wetting and clinginess. "I've been there in that situation they are going through right now. I was illegal and I was afraid whenever I saw men in uniforms," says Jenalyn Zuno, 22, a Filipina granted permanent residency in 2006.

The problem may be becoming cyclical. Israel started recruiting workers from East Asia 20 years ago, after the first intifadeh ended the flood of day laborers from the West Bank and Gaza. The migrants support entire families back in their home countries. Noa Kaufman of the Israeli Children pressure group, says Israel encourages deporting workers after five years or when they have children. But then those departing workers are simply replaced by new arrivals who go through the same turmoil. "The recruitment companies only get money for new workers. If a worker moves jobs once he's here, the recruitment company doesn't get any money," she says. "It doesn't make sense that there is no naturalization process for someone who was born here or someone who lived here as a refugee for 10 years. They are people, not machines. You can't expect them not to fall in love, not to give birth."

'You're a terrorist': Tony Blair taunted by young Palestinian in West Bank mosque

DAILY MAIL
21st October 2009

By Matthew Kalman

Tony Blair had to be rescued by bodyguards as he visited a West Bank mosque yesterday when a Palestinian man approached him shouting: 'You are a terrorist!'

The security breach occurred as the former prime minister was visiting an ancient mosque during an official trip to the city of Hebron.

The protester, a local man carrying a bag who was praying when Mr Blair and his entourage entered, was backed into a corner by guards who tried to shut him up.

Taking no chances: A bodyguard (left) scuffles with the Palestinian man after he shouts 'You are a terrorist' at Tony Blair

'He is not welcome in the land of Palestine,' the man shouted before he was dragged away by Palestinian security forces.

The man, a supporter of the Islamic Liberation Party Hizbut-Tahrir, was released after Blair left.

Mr Blair - the Special Representative in the Middle East for the 'Quartet' of the UN, EU, U.S. and Russia - gave a tight-lipped smile and tried to wave the incident off, but his Palestinian hosts were visibly upset by the lapse.

'You know, he made his protest and that's fair enough,' Mr Blair, 56, told reporters after the man was arrested.

'I think it's important for you guys as well to not always mistake the protest for the general view of the whole population.'

Verbal attack: The man, who is clutching a bag in his left hand, raises his right arm as he shouts towards Tony Blair in the Hebron mosque

Still shouting, the man raises his bag as he struggles with guards, who quickly surround him

The guards push the shouting man backwards before eventually pinning him up against the wall behind him

Mr Blair, right, continued the tour through the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron

Mr Blair (centre) is joined by Middle East dignitaries as he tours the mosque

The incident took place at the Ibrahimi Mosque, the sanctuary marking the location of the tombs of Muslim worshippers were gunned down by an Israeli extremist in the mid-1990s.

Mr Blair's spokesman Matthew Doyle said that at no time was the former prime minister in any danger, adding: 'He was on the opposite side of the mosque and he was just shouting. Mr Blair is used to being heckled.'

The fracas comes just days after Mr Blair was accused of being a war criminal by the father of a British soldier killed in Iraq, while attending a service at St Paul's Cathedral to remember the war dead.

'You've got blood on your hands': Peter Brierley, left, also verbally attacked Mr Blair over the death of his son Shaun, right, who was killed while fighting in Iraq

Security has been a constant concern-since Mr Blair's appointment two years ago.

The Daily Mail last Saturday

Last month, the head of a Palestinian group in Gaza that supports Al Qaeda revealed they had tried to assassinate 'the infidel' Mr Blair and former U.S. president Jimmy Carter but the plots were foiled by Gaza's ruling group Hamas.

Mr Blair is accompanied by a permanent four-man security detail from the Metropolitan Police Diplomatic Protection Unit.

He travels in a bullet-and bomb-proof jeep provided by the United Nations.

Palestinians say Mr Blair has little to show for more than two years as the Quartet envoy.

He is also hated by many Arabs for supporting the 2003 invasion of Iraq as then U.S. president George W. Bush's 'puppet', for declining to speak out against Israel's 2006 war in Lebanon against Hezbollah and for what they perceive as his pro-Israel bias when prime minister.

Ken Loach film money to promote Israeli cinema

Matthew Kalman Blog,
October 11, 2009
Ken Loach, the British film director who has become a leading light of the campaign to boycott Israel, will see the profits from his new film used – to promote Israeli cinema.
Nurit Shani, the cinema distributor who handles Loach’s films in Israel, announced before the Israeli premiere of his new movie “Looking for Eric” that she would dedicate the profits to distributing Israeli films worldwide.
Recently, Loach has led cultural boycott campaigns against Israeli films in Canada, Australia and the Edinburgh Film Festival. Loach’s ultimatum that he would withdraw from Edinburgh unless festival organizers return an Israeli travel grant for a young Israeli film director drew criticisms of blackmail.
Even Vanessa Redgrave, the outspoken pro-Palestinian campaigner who was filmed brandishing a Kalashnikov in a Palestinian refugee campaign, this week denounced Loach’s boycott tactics in a letter to the New York Review of Books.
"If attitudes are hardened on both sides, if those who are fighting within their own communities for peace are insulted, where then is the hope? The point finally is not to grandstand but to inch toward a two-state solution and a world in which both nations can exist, perhaps not lovingly, but at least in peace," said Redgrave's letter.
"I believe it is any artist's right to express his opinion, and I have therefore always given his films a screen,” his Israeli distributor told the “Looking for Eric” premiere audience at the Haifa Film Festival on Sunday. “Unfortunately, in the past year I discovered that Ken Loach himself does not share my views. The original artist, who I considered a great humanist, has turned out to be a man who does not believe in freedom of expression for people whose opinions oppose his own."

Israelis divided over Dachau as sister city: Tel Aviv suburb Rosh Ha-Ayin's mayor is son of survivor

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Sunday, October 11th 2009

By Matthew Kalman
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS

JERUSALEM - Of all the towns in the world, an Israeli mayor wants to take as a sister city a Bavarian burg whose name sends chills up the spines of Holocaust survivors: Dachau.

Even more astounding, Mayor Moshe Sinai of Rosh Ha-Ayin, a Tel Aviv suburb of 40,000, is the son of a Dachau concentration camp survivor.

Sinai says the German town shouldn't be shunned for its infamous past. "The majority of people in Dachau weren't yet born when the Holocaust happened," he said.

Besides, said Sinai, the Nazis "beat Jews and murdered Jews everywhere."

Still, Sinai's move has outraged many Israelis - especially the remaining survivors.

"I don't understand how they could do something like this, because of the symbolism," said Moshe Zanbar, a prominent Israeli politician who was a teenage Dachau inmate. "A special agreement between Dachau and an Israeli town is too much for me."

Noah Kliger, a historian and Holocaust survivor, said reaching out to receptive Germans is fine, but embracing Dachau is an "act of disturbing stupidity."

"Can a few apparent friends of Israel erase the name and the past of Dachau?" he asked.

In New York, Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League took the opposite view, adding "I applaud the mayor."

"I think it's a positive sign of moving forward," Foxman said. "I want the new generation of kids in Dachau to know there is a special relationship with Israel. That doesn't mean you forget the past."

Located near Munich, Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp and a prototype for death camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka. About a third of the estimated 30,000 prisoners murdered there were Jews.

When U.S. forces liberated Dachau in 1945, they made local residents come see the emaciated prisoners and the gas chambers operating downwind of them.

"I have nothing against the new generation of Germans, and we must not hate all of them, but their parents who lived through that era saw us and knew what was happening," Zanbar said. "We were worked to death there."

Sinai said Dachau Mayor Peter Brgel suggested twinning their cities in an effort to bring young people from around the world to Dachau to study the Holocaust.

"When I visited Dachau and the mayor accompanied me to the concentration camp, I saw his face," Sinai said. "I saw how much he regrets the past and I saw his willingness to build a new future for the youth in his city."

Sinai said their aim is "to build new bridges for the future, to build a connection between the children of both towns, learn about the past and guarantee that maybe in the future we will have another world, and draw the lessons from the past."

A Palestinian Brewery Grows in the West Bank

By MATTHEW KALMAN / TAYBEH
Thursday, Oct. 08, 2009

Madees Khoury draws pints of Taybeh Golden draught beer during the Palestinian brewery's annual Oktoberfest in Taybeh in the West Bank

Madees Khoury's favorite days are the ones where she wakes at 5 A.M., slips out of the house, enters the huge shed in the yard and, still in her pajamas, climbs the ladder to the top of the stainless steel tanks to begin brewing beer. A graduate of Hellenic College, Boston, Khoury, 24, is the only woman brewer — or brewster — in the Middle East. She is being groomed by her family to take over the Taybeh brewery, home of the only Palestinian beer.

With just 2,000 residents, Taybeh is the last remaining all-Christian village in the Holy Land. It rests on barren biblical hilltops between Ramallah and Jericho that have barely changed since Jesus stayed here. Madees's father and uncle were born here, and moved to Boston. When they returned to start the brewery in 1995, they met open hostility from the 16 Muslim villages surrounding them. Alcohol is banned by Islam. (Watch TIME's video "West Bank Brew: The Beer That Made Taybeh Famous.")

Today, Taybeh Beer is a potent symbol of the emerging Palestinian state and its tiny Christian minority — which is less than 2% of the population. The brewery turns a tidy profit, produces 600,000 litres a year and is brewed under license in Germany. Half the sales are within the West Bank, 40% go to Israel, and the rest are exports to Japan. Taybeh even had a nearby rabbi certify its product as kosher. Last year the brewery introduced a zero-alcohol brew for Muslims. Taybeh billboards with the slogan "Drink Palestinian — Taste the Revolution" tower over the main street of Ramallah. "Taybeh beer is our way of struggling," Madees Khoury tells TIME. "This is our resistance to the occupation — just to make beer and make people happy." (Read a story about the constraints on doing business in Palestine.)

Christians have fled the Holy Land in recent decades. There are more Taybeh natives living in Michigan than in the village. Madees hopes to inspire others to return. "I hope people look at me as a role model," says Khoury, adding that she supports "any Palestinian that lives here, goes to study abroad, then decides to move back to Palestine and invest their knowledge and their experience into anything in the country."

Last weekend, more than 10,000 visitors thronged Taybeh village for the fifth annual Oktoberfest, a celebration of music, dance, food and beer. Villagers sold more olive oil, honey, embroidery and other items in those two days than in the whole of 2009. But it wasn't easy for Taybeh to learn to thrive — and still isn't. After a promising start, business collapsed during the Palestinian intifada uprising. The Khoury brothers weathered the storm but new restrictions at the Israeli security barrier have now turned what used to be an hour-long delivery to Tel Aviv into an expensive two-day journey. Even the fresh water piped from a spring two miles away is under Israeli control and only flows for half the week. (See a brief history of oktoberfest.)

There are more serious hazards. Days before the festival, a car belonging to Madees's uncle David, who is also mayor, was torched, for still unknown reasons, outside the municipality building during a council meeting. A couple of years ago, he was shot at and someone tried to burn down a new commercial center he was constructing. In 2005, 14 homes were torched and the brewery nearly destroyed when a mob descended on Taybeh after a love affair between a Taybeh man and a Muslim woman from the neighboring village.

But the mayor, who still has a business interest in the brewery, told TIME he was not discouraged. "We are trying to show all foreigners and locals that we are a people that love life and liberty and are willing to live in peace with our neighbors, whether Jews or Muslims, and to show the other face of Palestine, that we are not terrorists," he says. "Some people want to interrupt my giving to my village," says the mayor. "I came after 30 years being in the U.S. in Boston. I left all the wealth. I left all the relaxing on the beaches and everything else and I came because I want to do something for Palestine, to invest in Palestine first. I want to do something for Taybeh. I want to help raise the living standards. I want to help create jobs in this village. I want to clean up the city. I want to put Taybeh on the map."

Video - West Bank Brew: The Beer That Made Taybeh Famous

Palestinian University Is Shut Down Amid Fight Over Control

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
DAILY NEWS TICKER
October 08, 2009

The Palestinian minister of education, Lamis Al-Alami, today announced the closure of Gaza City's Al-Aqsa University after the Hamas government, which controls the coastal strip, fired its president on Wednesday, according to the Ma-an News Agency. The university is one of the last major institutions in Gaza associated with Fatah, Hamas's bitter rival for Palestinian leadership. In a written statement, the minister said that she considered what the de facto government had done to be illegal and that she was closing the university according to the powers given her under the Palestinian Law of Higher Education.

Fatah Accuses Hamas of Seizing Control of University in Gaza City

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
DAILY NEWS TICKER
October 7, 2009

Fatah accused the rival Hamas faction of stealing control of Al-Aqsa University in Gaza City on Wednesday after the Hamas-led government in Gaza fired the university's president and replaced him with a three-member council. In a statement, Fatah officials alleged that "Hamas stormed the university in a barbaric way and took over it by force." The university was one of the last Fatah-affiliated strongholds in Gaza. It suffered some $1.5-million worth of damage during Israel's incursion into Gaza in January.

Anger as Israeli mayor plans to twin town with Dachau

DAILY MAIL
7th October 2009

By Matthew Kalman

An Israeli mayor has caused uproar with plans for his town to become the first to twin with a German town which housed a Nazi death camp.

Rosh Ha-Ayin, a middle-class dormitory town about 15 miles from Tel Aviv with a population of 40,000, has twinned with the infamous Bavarian town of Dachau, home of the first Nazi concentration camp about 12 miles from Munich.

More than 200,000 people from 30 countries were imprisoned at Dachau, a third of them Jews. Nearly 60,000 were murdered by the Nazis.

The Israeli town of Rosh Ha-Ayin which is to be twinned with the German town of Dachau

The camp was erected by the Nazis in March 1933 and carried the famous, cynical slogan “Arbeit Marcht Frei” above the entrance to its slave labour camp years before the same sign was placed above Auschwitz in Poland.

SS officers were trained there before being sent to larger death camps in Germany and Poland.

Many Israeli towns are twinned with similar-sized towns in Germany, and since the Jewish state was founded in 1948 the two countries have fostered close diplomatic and cultural ties in an effort to repair the damage done by the Nazi murder of six million Jews under Hitler.

But no Israeli town has ever twinned with those places that hosted the gas chambers and crematoria.

Moshe Zanbar, a prominent Israeli businessman and politician who survived Dachau as a slave labourer after being sent there aged 18, said he was 'appalled.'

'I don’t understand how they could do something like this, because of the symbolism,' he said.

'I have nothing against the new generation of Germans, and we must not hate all of them, but their parents who lived through that era saw us and knew what was happening.

'We were worked to death there. A special agreement between Dachau and an Israeli town is too much for me.'

Noah Kliger, a Holcoaust survivor and historian, described the twinning as an act of 'disturbing stupidity'.

'Can a few apparent friends of Israel erase the name and the past of Dachau?' he asked.

But Moshe Sinai, the mayor of Rosh Ha-Ayin and a former Israeli diplomat, said the twinning agreement honoured the memory of the Holocaust by bringing the next generation of Israeli and German youth together.

'My family are also Holocaust survivors and my family also suffered from the horrors of the Holocaust and many of them perished. But I also think about the future,' said Sinai.

He said it was ridiculous to discriminate between the people of different German cities because a concentration camp happened to be located there a half century ago.

'There was discrimination and the Kristallnacht in every town in Germany. They beat Jews and murdered Jews everywhere,' he said.

'Either we co-operate with Germany and honestly try to open a new page, and try to learn from the Holocaust to try and prevent more Holocausts, or we have to take Germany and divide it into permitted and non-permitted areas.'

'As local leaders we must think of the future of our children. If youth from Rosh Ha-Ayin learn together with youth from Dachau how to prevent future Holocausts, how to prevent future anti-Semitism, it should be welcomed.

'The majority of people in Dachau weren’t yet born when the Holocaust happened.

'They’ ve been told about the Holocaust and they want to learn from it. To co-operate with them in learning about the Holocaust is the best thing we can do,' he said.

Palestinian Students in Gaza Ask Egypt to Allow Entrance to Universities

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
NEWS TICKER
October 05, 2009, 09:27 AM ET

Palestinian students in Gaza have appealed to Egypt to open the Rafah border crossing so they can begin studying at Egyptian universities. Dozens of students with valid Egyptian residence permits who are enrolled in college in Egypt told the Ma'an news agency their classes had already begun but they were unable to reach them because of border restrictions that limit the number of Palestinians entering Egypt to a few hundred each day, even when the crossing is open.

Israeli University in West Bank Is Disqualified From Architecture Competition

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
NEWS TICKER
September 22, 2009, 08:39 AM ET

An Israeli college that reached the finals of a Spanish environmental-architecture competition has been disqualified because it is situated in an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. The college, the Ariel University Center of Samaria, was among 20 university architecture departments from around the world selected for the finals of the Solar Decathlon, sponsored by Spain's Housing Ministry, after a two-year competition. The college, which has 10,000 students, including many Arabs, had been awarded a 100,000-euro grant by the competition's organizers to build a model house for the finals, slated for Madrid in June 2010. But Ariel's involvement was terminated after a campaign led by Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine, a pro-Palestinian group.

An Israeli Professor Tests the Limits of Academic Freedom

Ben-Gurion U. of the Negev

Neve Gordon's call for a worldwide boycott of Israel as "an apartheid state" has raised a fierce debate about academic freedom far beyond the confines of his campus at Ben-Gurion U. of the Negev.

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
September 13, 2009

By Matthew Kalman
JERUSALEM

A bitter and very public debate in Israel has raised difficult questions about how far an academic can go in criticizing his own institution while continuing to work there.

Last month Neve Gordon, chairman of the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, branded Israel an "apartheid state" in an op-ed essay in the Los Angeles Times. He called for an "international boycott" of his country, including his own university.

The university's president, Rivka Carmi, quickly shot back an angry response. In the same newspaper and in a letter to faculty members, she noted that Mr. Gordon, a tenured professor, could not be "readily dismissed." But, she said, he had "forfeited his ability to work effectively within the academic setting."

Both Mr. Gordon's attack on Israel and Ms. Carmi's attack on one of her faculty members have inspired impassioned debates in Israel and beyond.

The Israeli Social Science Network, an online forum that usually carries notices of conferences and opportunities for financial support, was transformed into a heated intellectual battleground as Israeli academics debated the implications for academic freedom in the country. Nearly 200 tenured faculty members in Israel signed a petition supporting Mr. Gordon's right to freedom of expression.

Chilling Factor?

The professor's future at Ben-Gurion seems assured by the legal protection he enjoys through tenure, but many of his colleagues say they find his position untenable. Many others support and admire him, while still others disagree vehemently with his opinions but defend his right to express them. Nagging questions persist about whether the controversy will dissuade junior faculty members and students from freely expressing their opinions.

"I was not surprised by the fact that the president of the university and people in Israel disagreed with me and even disagreed with me vehemently," Mr. Gordon said in an interview with The Chronicle. "I think it's part of some of the people's job, and I think that's what they were supposed to do."

But he said that suggestions he should leave Israel or be sacked "went just overboard."

Ms. Carmi said she had spent years defending the right of her rebellious political-science professor to express his radical views about Israeli policy, but that this time he had gone too far.

"If I had lived in South Africa when it was an apartheid country, I would have left," she told The Chronicle. "I wouldn't be able to live in a country that I believed was an apartheid state."

"I don't understand how he can carry on doing his job in an institution that he is damaging by his very public comments. I don't understand how he can condemn the university and continue to take the salary that it pays," Ms. Carmi said.

"There is an inherent contradiction between calling for academic boycotts and fulfilling the responsibilities of leading an academic department in research collaboration, publications, and international conferences," she said.

Ms. Carmi said Mr. Gordon's opinion essay had branded Ben-Gurion as a radical, left-wing university and was endangering potential donations, crucial for future development. Several major donors have written to say they will no longer support the university unless action is taken against him, she said.

Mr. Gordon said he accepted that there was "tension" between his support for a boycott and his duties as department chairman, and he said he had considered stepping down. But he called Ms. Carmi's comments "a form of harassment and intimidation."

"My stepping down as department chair would have caused so much damage to academic freedom in Israel that we could not do it," he said. "If someone has to lose his position as department chair because of his opinion, however controversial, it creates a precedent."

'A Disservice' to Peace

Alon Tal, a veteran peace activist and associate professor of desert ecology at the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at the university, said Mr. Gordon had done "a disservice" to the peace camp and undermined the work toward Israeli-Palestinian coexistence at which the university excels.

"The country is in a state of war—let's not lose that context," Mr. Tal told The Chronicle. "People forget that. And you go to our enemies and you give them comfort and you strengthen their activities, and most of all you take actions that you know will damage your own university that supports you. That I find unacceptable."

He said Mr. Gordon should resign as department head and apologize. "When you take on a position as a head of department, you represent an institution. You don't represent just yourself," Mr. Tal said.

Uri Ram, head of Ben-Gurion's sociology department, agreed but drew different conclusions.

"There is a tension between a call to boycott Israeli universities and working in them and promoting them," he said. "Yet it should be left to Dr. Gordon to decide whether he can perform properly as department chair with this contradiction or not. He should not be sanctioned with discharge because he expressed an opinion. He is entitled unequivocally to freedom of expression."

Mr. Ram said he would resign as department head if Mr. Gordon was forced to step down, and he urged his colleagues to do the same.

'The Stakes Are Quite High'

The online petition in support of Mr. Gordon's academic freedom was started by Alon Harel, a law professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He said he "vehemently" disagreed with Mr. Gordon's opinions but warned that it would be "death for Ben-Gurion University" if Mr. Gordon were not allowed to express them.

"The stakes are quite high. The stakes are the future of Israeli academia," he said. "It would be a great loss to Israeli universities if people completing their Ph.D.'s and looking for a job believe they cannot teach at Ben-Gurion because their positions are ones that the president of the university does not tolerate."

Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors, said he was disturbed by Ms. Carmi's attitude but encouraged by the debate it had aroused.

"The kind of statements that Rivka Carmi has made have an immense chilling effect on untenured faculty from exercising the same freedom of speech," he said. "If Neve Gordon had been untenured and had written this op-ed and then came up for tenure, a president who says this oversteps the boundaries of academic freedom would seem implicitly willing to fire him."

"One of the greatest challenges for any nation-state is to protect the free-speech rights of its citizens and its faculty members during times of war," Mr. Nelson continued. "My own country has repeatedly failed that challenge. Israel is hardly alone in finding it difficult to meet the challenge of sustaining freedoms in wartime. The rest of the countries in the Middle East wouldn't even consider such a thing. In Syria they already would have shot him. In Iran they'd just beat him to death in a jail."

"I do think it is valid in thinking about the status of these freedoms in Israel," Mr. Nelson said, "to recognize that Israel is practically the only country in the Middle East where you could even have this debate."

Antiquities Authority chief: Top scholars were suspected of ties to forgery group

THE JERUSALEM POST
Sep. 8, 2009

MATTHEW KALMAN

A world-famous French scholar who authenticated one of the Israel Museum's prize exhibits and Israel's leading analyst of ancient semitic inscriptions were once suspected of being part of an "international forgery industry," it was revealed on Tuesday.

Shuka Dorfman, director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said that both Prof. Andre Lemaire of the Sorbonne and Ada Yardeni, Israel's leading epigrapher, had been under suspicion as the Authority prepared its case against those accused of faking dozens of priceless archeological items, including a burial box possibly connected to Jesus.

Dorfman divulged this information as part of the testimony he was giving at the Jerusalem District Court in the long-running trial of two men accused of dealing in fake antiquities.

The trial, which began in 2005, followed an indictment that Dorfman described at the time as "the tip of the iceberg" of an international forgery network.

Oded Golan, a Tel Aviv collector, is charged with forging the inscription on a 60 cm.-long limestone burial box, or ossuary, that reads "James son of Joseph brother of Jesus."

The ossuary was exhibited in Toronto in 2002 and hailed by scholars as the first physical link ever discovered to the family of Jesus. But when it was returned to Israel, an Antiquities Authority committee of experts determined it was fake.

Golan is also accused of forging an inscribed stone tablet supposedly from the First Temple, and dozens of other ancient items.

Robert Deutsch, a prominent antiquities dealer based in Jaffa, was also charged with forgery, but the prosecution has been forced to retract many of the original charges after they were challenged in court.

Many of the world's top archeological experts have testified as both prosecution and defense witnesses in proceedings that already run to more than 9,000 pages.

Judge Aharon Farkash has wondered aloud in court how he could determine the authenticity of the items if the professors could not agree among themselves.

Deutsch called Dorfman to give evidence as a defense witness after the prosecution refused to put him or his deputy, Uzi Dahari, on the stand.

Dorfman said the anti-theft unit of the Antiquities Authority believed the items were forged by an international group of experts and dealers that included the two defendants.

He said the suspects at one time included Prof. Lemaire, a paleographer at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Lemaire was the first scholar to study an ivory pomegranate believed to have been used in the First Temple. The thumb-sized pomegranate is inscribed in ancient Hebrew: "Sacred donation for the priests in the House of God."

It was purchased nearly 20 years ago by a private philanthropist for $550,000 and donated to the Israel Museum after its authenticity was verified by experts.

Lemaire said he discovered the item in 1979 when an antiquities dealer in the Old City of Jerusalem showed him the tiny ornament over a cup of tea.

Lemaire photographed it and published his findings two years later in the respected Revue Biblique journal. In 1984, he published his findings in English, triggering worldwide interest.

In 2002, Lemaire published the first study of the James ossuary in the Biblical Archeology Review after seeing the burial box at the home of Oded Golan.

The pomegranate was later inspected and the inscription on it found to be suspect by a separate Antiquities Authority inquiry. Dorfman told the court they decided not to bring criminal charges against eight suspects identified in that case.

Lemaire was questioned by Antiquities Authority inspectors during a two-year investigation, but apparently was never told that he was under suspicion.

Under questioning by Deutsch's attorney, Hagai Sitton, Dorfman was challenged to justify the sweeping statements he made at a press conference in December 2005, the day the defendants were charged.

"We know there are antiquity forgeries - it's not a new thing. But the extent and the drama in attempting to fake history didn't allow us as a government body not to become involved," Dorfman told the press conference.

"I believe we have revealed only the tip of the iceberg. This industry encircles the world, involves millions of dollars," he said.

"I said there was an industry involved in making all these fakes," Dorfman told the court on Tuesday. "In my view, it looked like an entire industry, not a single forger."

Dorfman said he took responsibility for the prosecution, which has run into difficulties as the trial has wound on, but Dorfman himself cast doubt on the reliability of much of the testimony of the prosecution's star witness, billionaire antiquities collector Shlomo Moussaieff. According to the indictment, Moussaieff was duped into paying huge sums for several of the allegedly fake items, but his version of events has been repeatedly questioned.

Asked to comment on one story told by Moussaieff, Dorfman responded, "He is not telling the truth, plain and simple."

In another setback for the prosecution, Judge Farkash agreed to recall an expert on isotopes from the Geological Survey of Israel to explain apparent contradictions between testimony given to the court and research submitted to a scientific journal three weeks earlier.

The Burial Box of Jesus' Brother: A Case Against Fraud

By Matthew Kalman / Jerusalem
Saturday, Sep. 05, 2009


The world of biblical archaeology was stirred in 2002 by the unveiling of a limestone burial box with the Aramaic inscription Yaakov bar Yosef akhui di Yeshua ("James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"). Allegedly dating to an era contemporaneous with Christ, the names were a tantalizing collation of potentially great significance: James was indeed the name of a New Testament personage known as the brother of Jesus, both ostensibly the sons of Joseph the carpenter, husband of Mary. If its dates were genuine, the burial box — or ossuary — could well be circumstantial evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, a tenet supported only by gospels and scripture written, at the earliest, a generation after his crucifixion and, of course, by the faith of hundreds of millions through 2,000 years.

Experts, however, declared the ossuary a modern-day forgery. It was seized by Israeli police and its owner, Tel Aviv collector Oded Golan, was arrested and charged with counterfeiting the ossuary and dozens of other items. Golan and co-defendant Robert Deutsch were put on trial in the Jerusalem District Court in 2005. Deutsch is accused of forging other valuables, though not the ossuary. Both men deny all charges. (Read a review of a book on fraudulent biblical relics and the ossuary of James.)

Their trial is still continuing. Many of the world's top archaeological experts have testified as both prosecution and defense witnesses in proceedings that already run to more than 9,000 pages. And while the original charges against the ossuary appear to have been popularly accepted as conventional wisdom, they seem to be headed for trouble in the courtroom. Judge Aharon Farkash, who has a degree in archaeology, has wondered aloud in court how he can determine the authenticity of the items if the professors cannot agree among themselves. (Read a story from TIME's archive on the ossuary of James.)

The director of the Israel Antiquities Authority will soon take the witness stand for the first time since he declared, in December 2004, that the ossuary and other items seized in a two-year investigation were the "tip of the iceberg" of an international conspiracy that placed countless fakes in collections and museums around the world. He promised more arrests. But no other fake items have been seized, no-one else has been arrested, and Judge Farkash has hinted strongly that the prosecution case is foundering.

Next week, defense attorneys will present evidence suggesting that scientists testifying for the prosecution have disproved their own findings against the ossuary. The scientific evidence against Golan is largely based on measurements of the oxygen isotopic composition (in technical terms, d18O — Delta 18 Oxygen) of the thin crust — or patina — covering the ossuary inscription.

Scientists are unsure exactly how the patina is formed but most agree it is composed of deposits of solid calcium carbonate that come by way of rain or groundwater. It can contain particles added by wind and perhaps biological. Additionally, depending on the levels of acidity, it may also involve a chemical reaction with the surface of the object. Some scientists say the process is similar to the way stalagmites grow in caves; others disagree.

Testifying for the prosecution, Miryam Bar-Matthews and Avner Ayalon from the Geological Survey of Israel recorded isotopic values as low as -10.2 permil (parts per thousand) in patina found within the inscription on the ossuary. (It is believed that the lower the number permil, the wetter the season was when it was created.) "The patina could not have been created in the Judean Hills or the surrounding area in a natural way," Bar-Matthews told the court in October 2007. With the exception of one letter in the word Yeshua ("Jesus"), she said, "the patina in the other letters is not natural."

Bar-Matthews and Ayalon based on their research on stalagmites in a cave near Jerusalem, where isotopic data showed rainfall and surface temperatures over many centuries, they concluded that the climate in the past 2,000 years could not have produced the patina on the ossuary. As they wrote with Professor Yuval Goren — another prosecution witness and professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University — in the Journal of Archeological Science in 2004, "the patina covering the letters was artificially prepared, most probably with hot water, and deposited onto the underlying letters." The article states: "There is no evidence for the existence of water with such low d18O values in the area during this time span. The range of rain and groundwater d18O values in the Judean Mountains region during the last 3,000 years could not have been lower than approx -6 permil." Pressed by defense counsel, Bar-Matthews declared that an isotopic value lower than -6.5 permil for the ossuary was "impossible."

However, a subsequent paper by Bar-Matthews and Ayalon with their American colleagues Ian Orland and John Valley studied samples from a stalagmite that apparently grew from about 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D. And that showed isotopes as low as -8.5 permil, with annual rainfall in the Roman era reaching double the amounts the scientists had previously calculated. The article, published in the 2009 issue of Quaternary Research, was submitted for publication on October 11, 2007, before Bar-Matthews and Ayalon gave evidence at the ossuary trial.

The defense expects to use these esoteric contradictions against the prosecution when the trial resumes on Sunday. Defense expert Prof Joel Kronfeld of the Department of Geophysics at Tel Aviv University says the new data shatters the prosecution case. "I think this is amazing — it blows my mind," Kronfeld told TIME. "The findings in this study stand in complete contradiction to the assumptions presented by Ayalon and Bar-Matthews, and shed new light on the theory they presented to the court. They not only undercut their own arguments for determining that the patina on several items was not natural but rather quite the opposite. These data can support the authenticity of the items."

Bar-Matthews, however, argues the data from her later study are "irrelevant" to the ossuary trial. She and her colleagues say that the very low values representing wet seasons were "noise" that should not be taken in isolation since patina takes many years to form. Patina's isotopic value would represent an average figure, not just the low winter results. "It's like comparing tomatoes and gloves," Bar-Matthews told TIME. "There is no scenario where we can get light isotopic values below -6 permil also in Jerusalem under natural conditions."

The defense is likely to point out that the tests on the ossuary carried out by Bar-Matthews and Ayalon also found traces of patina in at least two other letters of the inscription with isotopes of -4.65 and -5.82 permil — well within the original range they suggested. Bar-Matthews and Ayalon discounted these results, saying the results had been corrupted either from the limestone of the box or from a nearby crack that had been recently repaired.

The trouble with this kind evidence is, of course, that the formation of patina isn't yet explainable in science everyone can agree on. The patina on one letter could be the result of one particularly wet winter that happened to leave its evidence on the ossuary — but perhaps not in a stalagmite in a cave. Or vice versa. "The analogy between the formation of cave deposits and the formation of patina on archeological objects is imprecise and more work is needed," says Professor Aldo Shemesh, an isotope expert at the Weizmann Institute who was also called as a defense expert. In the end, it is a numbers game — figuring on averages of statistics over which all the experts disagree. Says Shemesh: "Scientific debates should be discussed and resolved in peer-reviewed literature and scientific conferences, not in court." But a judge in Jerusalem has to decide on the "facts" as he sees them, for Jesus' sake.

Israel Bars Some Foreign Academics Who Teach in the West Bank

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
September 3, 2009

By Matthew Kalman
Ramallah, West Bank

Israel has clamped down on the movement of foreign academics teaching at Palestinian universities in the West Bank, barring some from entering the region altogether or stamping "Palestinian Authority only" in the passports of others, preventing them from entering Israel.

An English-language instructor from Ireland who taught for several years at the Arab American University, in Jenin, was refused entry on August 23 when she returned to the West Bank to take up a new position at Bethlehem University and is now unable to teach. A Canadian instructor of Iranian descent was given the "Palestinian Authority only" stamp when he arrived on Sunday to teach at the Arab American University's English Language Center. A British lecturer in Middle East politics had to cancel a planned lecture at Birzeit University this year after she was denied entry by Israeli immigration officials.

The Irish instructor, who asked not to be named, said she had been teaching English at the Arab American University since 2007. Although the Israeli authorities refused to issue her a work permit, in the past they had always accepted her employment contract and extended her tourist visa to the contract's end date.

She left the West Bank for Jordan on August 20 and returned via the Allenby Bridge, which connects the West Bank with Jordan, on August 23, with 11 days left on her visa.

"I was due to take up a new position at Bethlehem University on August 24. I had a letter from the university on official paper, but it was all very different this time," she told The Chronicle from Jordan, where she was stranded. "I was kept waiting for four hours and then the immigration officer started screaming at me about a lack of work permit."

After lengthy interrogation by a plainclothes security officer and an Israeli Ministry of the Interior official, she was photographed, fingerprinted, and told her request to enter was denied.

"It is greatly to be regretted, she was a valued employee," said Graham Stott, chair of the department of modern languages at the Arab American University.

Mr. Stott said several lecturers who were allowed in were issued visas restricting them to the Palestinian Authority areas only.

"For some the restrictive visa is not problematic because they are here to work in Jenin, and they are quite happy to leave via Jordan and so it doesn't really affect them. For others who had planned to visit Israel it seriously compromises their position and their ability to do research," Mr. Stott said.

Information for travelers posted on the Web site of the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem confirms the recent change in policy.

"Anyone indicating that they either have connections to the West Bank or are planning to travel to the West Bank, may get this stamp," which does not permit them to enter into or return to Israel. "The Consulate can do nothing to assist in getting this visa status changed," the Web site states. It is not clear when or why the new visas were introduced. The Israeli Defense Ministry directed all inquiries to the coordinator of Israeli government activities in the territories. A spokesman for the coordinator directed inquiries to the country's Interior Ministry, where a spokesperson did not return calls seeking comment.

The new visa being stamped in tourists' passports has been criticized for unfairly limiting the movements of visitors with Palestinian relatives or friends, whose first stop may be the West Bank but who intend to visit Israel as well. Many Americans of Palestinian origin but who lack Palestinian passports have been turned back on arrival at Ben Gurion Airport and told they can enter only from Jordan via the Allenby Bridge.

Hanadi Abu-Taha, administrative assistant at the Arabic-language-teaching program at Birzeit University, told The Chronicle that two American students and one Japanese student were turned back at the Jordanian-Israeli border at the end of August.

"None of them is from a Palestinian background. Students who came through Ben Gurion Airport managed to enter, but those who came through the land crossing from Jordan were refused. We don't know why," Miss Taha said.

"Because of the visa problems we have shortened the semester from four to three months, which is the length of the Israeli tourist visa. It is causing major disruption," she said.

Toufic Haddad, a Palestinian-American activist who revealed the new policy on his blog in early August said the new visa was a violation of the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Agreement (known as the Oslo II Accords), which allows for most foreign tourists to pass from the West Bank and Gaza Strip into Israel.

"Most visiting faculty have been granted a one-year single-entry visa if they are associated with an educational institution, but some haven't," said Salwa Duaibis, coordinator of the Right to Enter Campaign, a group advocating unfettered access to the Palestinian Authority areas. "I have a feeling there isn't much effort put into making sure the regulations are understood by the police at the border."

Ms. Duaibis said that foreign students enter on tourist visas and can be forced to leave after three months. "Universities cannot plan their academic year properly and neither students nor professors can rely on the arrangement 100 percent," she said.

Olmert's Indictment: Secular Justice or a Sign from God?

By Matthew Kalman / Jerusalem
Monday, Aug. 31, 2009

On the eve of the 2001 Israeli general election that would sweep Ariel Sharon to power, Ehud Olmert, then the mayor of Jerusalem and Sharon's right-hand man, explained why the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had been brought down. Olmert pointed out that, at the Camp David peace talks, Barak had offered the Palestinians almost all the West Bank and half of Jerusalem. Olmert declared, "This shows that anyone who dares to raise his hand against Jerusalem will be wiped out."

Now Olmert himself has been "wiped out." Months after offering the Palestinians a deal similar to Barak's, he was forced to resign last year as Israel's prime minister over a string of corruption allegations. On Sunday he became the only Israeli prime minister ever indicted on criminal charges, part of a scandal that will prevent him from returning to power anytime soon.

The 60-page indictment charges Olmert with multiple counts of fraud, breach of faith and deception. Prosecutors say Olmert double-billed for trips abroad on behalf of various charities and public bodies, including the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, and received tens of thousands of dollars in cash payments from Long Island financier Morris Talansky. Olmert vigorously denies the charges and says he will fight to clear his name.

Many religious Israelis believe that Olmert's woes are a divine punishment for reneging on his promise never to divide Jerusalem. According to one poll, more than a quarter of all Israelis and a majority of the religious, believe that Ariel Sharon's massive stroke in January 2006 was a punishment for ordering Israel's withdrawal from Gush Katif in Gaza in 2005 and considering a Palestinian state. "No question about it," Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe, a leader of the Chabad Hasidic movement in Israel told TIME. "He fought against the people of Israel, against the land of Israel, against the Torah of Israel, against God." Olmert, says Wolpe, "is getting his punishment."

But there may be a more earthly kind of justice at work. Olmert is the fourth senior Israeli politician to face criminal charges in the past year. Former president Moshe Katsav is on trial for rape (he has denied the charge); Olmert's former finance minister Avraham Hirschson was sentenced to five years for theft and money laundering; and former health minister Shlomo Benizri of the Shas Party is about to start a prison sentence for bribery. "It reflects the growing toughness of the enforcement agencies, their ability and their will to confront the highest ranks of politics in order to root out corrupt people," says Professor Moshe Maor of the Hebrew University.

Secular justice, nevertheless, can still have apocalyptic repercussions — in this case for Olmert's party. Kadima leaders were torn between their loyalty to Olmert, who founded the party with Sharon in 2005, and their desire not to be tainted by the criminal prosecution. "On this difficult day, we must not forget Olmert's rich contributions," said Kadima legislator Yoel Hasson. But Kadima's right wing could take advantage of the crisis to split the party and cross over to the Likud, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to woo them for months. Such a move would bolster Netanyahu's shaky coalition that depends for its survival on small, right-wing parties that champion unlimited Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

"There's a whole shift in the political spectrum. We could be, if Netanyahu handles this correctly, on the verge of a new political dynamic," says political commentator Moshe Dann. "Kadima are fighting among themselves. If Netanyahu can convince members of Kadima that it is in their and the national interest to join his government, he will ensure his survival, eliminate Kadima as a serious rival, and establish himself as Israel's most important political leader."

It was Olmert's resignation and the subsequent ouster of his center-right Kadima party from government earlier this year that resurrected Netanyahu's career. Now his coalition's opposition to territorial concessions in the West Bank has put it on a collision course with the Palestinians and the Obama administration. Some Israelis continue to see the hand of God in all this. Settler leaders said they hoped that Netanyahu, whom they forced from power in 1999 for making concessions to the Palestinians at the Wye River peace summit, would take note. Says David Ha-Ivri, spokesman for the Samaria Regional Council, a settler organization: "We always hope that the fear of God will protect public officials from making bad moves. In our belief and understanding, eroding away our rights on the land of Israel is a bad move. I hope that this reflects on Netanyahu and strengthens him in the position of holding on to the land of Israel."

East Jerusalem Arabs feel squeeze as Jews push into communities

Burgeoning development of apartments harming urban relations, critics say

TORONTO STAR, Aug 28, 2009

Matthew Kalman
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

JERUSALEM – Ahmed Abedat was wondering this week how much longer he will be able to enjoy the spectacular view from his grocery shop in Ras Al-Amud – from the ancient Mount of Olives cemetery across the valley to the majestic golden Dome of the Rock soaring above the walls of Jerusalem's Old City.

Abedat's father opened the store a half-century ago under Jordanian rule, when Ras Al-Amud was the first bend out of Jerusalem on the ancient road to Jericho. The shop continued to thrive after the 1967 Six Day War, when the Israelis captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank, despite an Israeli security checkpoint 100 metres down the road outside the regional headquarters of the Israeli police.

Today the checkpoint has gone, replaced by Israel's nine-metre high concrete security barrier that severs the road to Jericho and cuts off East Jerusalem from nearby villages. The police station is empty, slated as the site of new houses for 104 Jewish families.

Abedat, 60, never thought he would miss the police and the checkpoint, but as he counted his meagre $5 in takings one morning this week he doubted aloud whether his little store will be able to continue. He doesn't expect any business from his new neighbours.

"They don't talk to us. They never come to my shop to buy anything. We hardly see them," Abedat told the Star. "They want the Arabs to leave Jerusalem. They want it for themselves."

"They" are the Israeli residents of Ma'aleh HaZeitim, a half-finished compound behind Abedat's grocery. With the police station site, Ras Al-Amud will soon be home to 1,000 Israelis, the largest concentration of Jews in any Arab-populated neighbourhood of East Jerusalem. Israeli groups that encourage such migration say they are merely returning to the Jewish heartland of Jerusalem. Palestinians describe them as settlers.

"There's no reason in the world why the Jewish people can't live here and other places like it," said Daniel Luria, executive director of Ateret Cohanim, an educational organization that builds yeshivas and student housing. "This is the heart of Jerusalem, the homeland of the Jewish people and the pumping-station of the Jewish world."

The site is owned by Irving Moskowitz, a Miami casino billionaire who has spent millions of dollars buying up properties in East Jerusalem for right-wing religious groups. Moskowitz's money has helped move 50 Jewish families into the Palestinian village of Silwan, site of the ancient city of King David, as well as purchase houses in the Muslim and Christian Quarters of the Old City.

Last month, the United States demanded that Israel halt plans for 20 apartments in another Moskowitz property in Sheikh Jarrah, north of the Old City. Approval for another 200 units nearby is pending. The issue sparked a collision between the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration.

U.S. special envoy George Mitchell is trying to get Israel to freeze its construction of Jewish settlements, a Palestinian condition for resuming peace talks. He has also asked Arab states to offer gestures toward normalization of ties with Israel. A Israeli delegation will meet the U.S. envoy again next week.

Palestinian mapping expert Khalil Tafakgi said the police station project was part of a plan to keep East Jerusalem under Israeli control.

"The aim of this outpost inside the Palestinian built-up area is so as to not divide Jerusalem another time. It means that Jerusalem, east and west, will be under Israel's control and East Jerusalem will not be capital of the Palestinian state. This is the aim," said Tafakgi.

Ateret Cohanim argues that the property deals are legal.

Its opponents say that moving ultra-nationalist Jews into the heart of Arab neighbourhoods is causing irreparable damage to urban relations.

"The whole issue of settlement in East Jerusalem, which all countries except Israel recognize as occupied territory, is part of what is contributing to tension in the city rather than the good faith that could lead to a negotiated peace," said Sarah Kramer, associate director of Ir Amim, a group working for Israeli-Palestinian coexistence.

The West Bank's English Settler

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